Train derailment onto I-5 near Tacoma results in fatalities

[French G.]

I know the freight engineers have to hit an alarm button every minute I think to prove they are awake. Boring, until your train flys that is. Seems to be a prime candidate for automation.

[Hawkmoon]

Talking from experience?    


ETA: I also caught the first part of the press conference with Amtrac's president. He said that they were "on track" to get the PTC system deployed in that area before the federal deadline.

Probably wasn't the best turn of phrase he could have used...

The original deadline was 2015. It was extended to the end of 2018 ... and is likely to be extended again.

The question is -- this was a BRAND NEW line. Why the [bleep] would they build a NEW line -- for gazillions of dollars -- and not have the Positive Train Control working when the line went live? The trains have it -- it gets used on other parts of the route. They jst didn't connect all the dots on the new route. This was sheer idiocy.

I read an article that cited a statement by someone, I think with the NTSB, after a train crash in 2016 predicting that if they didn't get PTC implemented, "we'll be having this discussion again after the next fatality" (or something like that). as Bugs Bunny use to say, "Truer woids was nevah spoken."

The same article mentioned that this train had two engineers on board, where normally there would ony be one. I wonder if they put a brick on the deadman's switch and were playing cards -- or looking at porn.

[230RN]

I read that same statement about having the discussion after the next fatality.

I wonder if the trainmen thought the system was live anyhow and trusted it.

I remember I used to love standing by the front windows of the elevated trains (the "el") to and from school.  Just to watch the world go by.  

There was one sudden turn somewhere in Brooklyn where I started to get pretty anxious as we approached that lefthand curve at a pretty high speed.  When we hit it, the damned car rocked so hard I figured the left wheels went off the tracks.

I could hear the cars behind "my" first car squealing after the  car hit the straightaway again.  It happened again during my four years of HS, so there must have been one hotshot driver bent on suicide who drove that particular schedule.  Took the subway all the time instead of the "el" after that second one.  Got some homework done with nothing to see just roaring through those dark tunnels.

Jes' some personal color for what it's worth, probably nuthin'.

I guess the death toll in Washington went down to three.  All appropriate sympathy to all those affected.

Terry

[Hawkmoon]

As I've been reading more and seeing more photos, I realize that my understanding of the accident was backwards. I saw a photo with a locomotive on the tracks and I assumed (silly me) that the locomotive had made the turn and the trailing cars hadn't. Turns out this train had a locomotive at each end. That's what threw me -- Amtrak runs through my area, and they never have dual locomotives. In the case of the train in Tacoma, apparently the locomotive that stayed on the tracks was the "caboose" -- the locomotive at the front went off the tracks.

Looking at some aerial views of that curve, it's pretty obvious that a train couldn't take that at 80 MPH.

Google Maps has added a callout for the location of the derailment. It's just west of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, at 47.0675259,-122.6860813

[Fly320s]

Talking from experience?    

Yes.  Flying is boring.  Once we get above 10,000 feet, there isn’t much to do.

[TommyGunn]

Yes.  Flying is boring.  Once we get above 10,000 feet, there isn’t much to do.

One would think that,  the air being thinner up there,  you'd have to flap harder....      

[Fly320s]

The question is -- this was a BRAND NEW line. Why the [bleep] would they build a NEW line --

I think it was a new route, not actual new tracks.